Kinds

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /kaɪndz/

Definitions

1. Different categories or classes of things that share common characteristics ; to organize or arrange items into groups based on their attributes
2. Various styles or forms of something grouped by shared traits ; the act of sorting or labeling according to type
3. Distinct groups distinguished by common features ; the process of identifying or separating into different categories

Etymology: "Kinds" is simply the plural of "kind," so its story is really the story of the singular. The root meaning was "inherent nature" or "disposition": a thing's natural character, the way it was born and made. Old English "cynd" and "gecynd" carried that sense, along with "race" and "generation," and the word was tied to the verb "cennan," meaning "to bear, give birth." A kind of thing was, at heart, a thing of the same birth or stock. That sense of shared origin is why "kind" still carries both "sort" and "gentle" in English. Something of the same birth shared a nature, and a person who was "kind" behaved in accordance with their natural, human nature, which in Middle English usage meant showing fellow-feeling toward others of their kind. The word later split into the sense of classification we use today, so that "all kinds of birds" means "all sorts of birds," with each sort defined by shared inherent nature.

Synonyms: types, sorts, categories, varieties

Antonyms: wholes, universals